AI in Higher Education: Making Learning More Interactive

What if the problem with university attendance isn't simply that students don't want to learn?

What if they don't see enough value in sitting through a traditional lecture when they can review the slides in their own time?

That's one of the questions that came out of a recent consultation I held with students from the UWA Artificial Intelligence Club as part of the Fogarty Foundation's Generation AI program.

The conversation was one of the liveliest discussions about AI I've been involved in, and the students had some really interesting ideas about how AI in higher education could change the way university teaching works.

One of the biggest insights was that AI shouldn't just be something students use outside the classroom.

It could actually help universities rethink what happens inside it.

Why are university students skipping class?

One of the issues raised during the consultation was student attendance.

Students aren't necessarily staying away from class because they don't care about their education.

Some simply don't believe attending a traditional lecture is the best use of their time.

If the alternative is watching or reviewing the same slides independently, students may reasonably ask:

What am I getting from being in the room that I can't get on my own?

That's an important question for higher education.

And it becomes even more relevant as AI makes it easier for students to access explanations, summaries and information whenever they need them.

Rather than competing with this technology, universities have an opportunity to rethink what learning in the classroom is actually for.

AI could make tutorials more interactive

One of the ideas discussed by the students was using AI to make tutorials more interactive.

Instead of simply explaining a concept, students could interact with it.

Instead of only reading about a principle, they could see it demonstrated.

Instead of completing an assignment that tests whether they can reproduce information, they could be given a more challenging problem that requires them to exercise judgement.

This is where AI becomes particularly interesting.

The technology can potentially help create learning experiences that would be much harder to deliver through traditional lectures alone.

Move from information delivery to judgement

One of the biggest opportunities with AI in university education is changing what we ask students to do.

If AI can quickly generate an explanation, summarise information or produce a basic response, then simply asking students to reproduce information becomes less valuable.

We need to think about the skills that AI can't simply replace with a generated answer.

Judgement.

Problem-solving.

Critical thinking.

Application.

Creativity.

Knowing what to do with information.

Assignments can be designed around these skills.

Instead of asking students to demonstrate that they can find an answer, we can ask them to evaluate different approaches, make decisions, explain their reasoning and defend their choices.

That creates a much more meaningful role for the student.

What if students could see the theory in action?

Another idea from the consultation was using AI models to demonstrate concepts that students would otherwise only encounter hypothetically.

Take a physics principle.

Rather than only talking through the principle on a whiteboard or asking students to read about it, imagine being able to create an interactive AI-supported model where students can change variables and see what happens.

The principle becomes something they can explore.

They can experiment.

They can make predictions.

They can get something wrong and investigate why.

They can see the relationship between theory and what actually happens.

That kind of learning experience can be much more engaging than simply reading the information from a slide.

Students want something different

One of the clearest messages from the students was simple:

They don't want to be lectured at.

That doesn't mean lectures have no place in higher education.

But students increasingly expect learning to be interactive, relevant and connected to the way they actually engage with technology.

If students can access information independently, universities need to offer something more valuable than information delivery.

The classroom needs to become a place where students do something with that information.

They discuss it.

Challenge it.

Apply it.

Test it.

Create with it.

And make decisions about it.

AI shouldn't make learning easier. It should make it better.

There's an important distinction here.

Using AI in higher education shouldn't simply mean finding ways to make university work faster or easier.

If the only goal is efficiency, we risk missing the opportunity.

The better question is:

How can we use AI to create better learning experiences?

That might mean using AI to personalise activities.

It might mean creating simulations.

It might mean generating different scenarios for students to work through.

It might mean designing assignments that require greater judgement.

Or it might mean giving students more opportunities to experiment with concepts rather than simply reading about them.

The technology itself isn't the solution.

The way we use it is what matters.

What does this mean for university educators?

The conversation also raises a broader question about the role of educators.

As AI becomes better at delivering information, educators may have more opportunity to focus on the parts of teaching that are hardest to automate.

Facilitating discussion.

Challenging assumptions.

Giving feedback.

Creating meaningful problems.

Helping students make connections.

Encouraging curiosity.

And teaching students how to exercise judgement.

AI doesn't have to replace good teaching.

It can give educators new tools for creating experiences that make students want to participate.

Learning needs to keep evolving

This consultation was a good reminder that students should be part of conversations about the future of education.

They are the ones experiencing the current system.

They know where traditional approaches aren't working for them.

And they often have ideas about how technology could make learning more engaging that educators might not have considered.

The students I spoke with weren't simply asking for AI to make university easier.

They were asking for learning to become more interesting, more interactive and more relevant.

That's an important distinction.

The future of AI in higher education

The question shouldn't be whether universities will use AI.

The more useful question is how they will use it.

Will AI simply become another tool for generating summaries, answering questions and completing tasks?

Or can it help universities create learning experiences that require students to think, experiment, question and make decisions?

I think the second option is far more interesting.

The future of higher education isn't about replacing the lecturer with AI.

It's about using these tools to rethink what students actually need from the classroom.

And perhaps that's the opportunity we've been looking for.